


the geography of you and me

by superstarrgirl



Category: NCIS
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/M, Not Really AU, Ziva/Team familial relationship, based off a head canon I read somewhere??, briefest of brief mention of kate todd and michael rivkin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 17:44:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3701129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superstarrgirl/pseuds/superstarrgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the thing about life is that it goes on after Ziva leaves, and maybe that's the worst part.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>(the team is ready to move on, Ellie notices, but they're not ready to let go)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the geography of you and me

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya! So here you go - my first fic for NCIS, aka my love. I watched NCIS when I was little-little, and to this day I still love it. I was heartbroken when Ziva left, and I know it's been like a year and a half but I had the urge to write this so here you go! I hope y'all enjoy!
> 
> (and as per usual, song for accompaniment could be 'may i' by trading yesterday or 'not alone' by red. either works)

He returns to Washington with a Star of David tucked inside his pocket and words that don’t seem to fill the void left behind.   
  
_she needed time-she needed to find herself-she gave up-I should have done better_  

When he breaks the news, Gibbs nods like he knew all along, McGee lets out a slow breath and returns to his desk, Abby destroys every photo she has of Ziva and then sinks to her knees and sobs. Tony kind of wants to as well.

He stops sleeping, works long and hard hours until his eyes burn and his hand cramps and he can’t see anything more than case file upon case file upon case file. At midnight on a Tuesday (2 weeks), Vance drops a folder on his desk.

“Her official resignation.” The director says quietly, but his words ricochet around the empty bullpen like a bullet. “Faxed it over an hour ago.”

Tony stares at the open folder, at her neat and nondescript handwriting, at her apology, and then he pushes it back to the Director and waits for him to leave. He does eventually, but Vance smiles at the photo of Tony that used to be on Ziva’s computer like he knows a secret, then retreats back to his office. 

(It was like this once before, when Tony killed Michael. Running through the motions, _grabyourgeargrabyourgeargrabyourgear_. Except then it hadn’t seemed so real. Now it feels almost tangible, bittersweet, like goodbyes.) 

The thing with losing Kate was that there were no goodbyes – one moment she was here, the next she wasn’t. But with Ziva, there was goodbye, but it didn’t feel like enough. It felt like he should have done more, should have begged her to stay, should have begged her to let _him_ stay, to let him change with her. He would have done it, too, would have changed for her. Maybe that’s what scared her.

Maybe it’s what scared him too.

He finds McGee one morning staring at his screen, a sad sort of smile on his face. When Tony goes over to see, it’s the photos of Ziva in a bikini in the hours before Jenny died.

“She told me to delete them.” Tim whispers, his voice hoarse. It’s the first time Tony’s heard him talk about her, and the brokenness in his voice hurts. “I should have deleted them, huh?" 

Tony claps him on the back but doesn’t say anything, doesn’t think he has the courage to scrape up the words from the back of his throat. He doesn’t even think they’ll sound like words.

(“No one wants to say her name – it’s like she’s dead.” He says to the Boss, who just cocks his head. _I don’t think anyone can say her name_ , he wants to add. _No one wants to admit that this is real_.)

Ellie Bishop is cute and sweet and genuine, but she’s no Ziva, and while no one wants to comment, even Ellie starts to notice. Rifling through Tony’s drawers for a pen, she’ll pull out the Star of David necklace and question what it is. When scrolling through something on Tim’s computer, she’ll pull up the photo of a lady in a bright yellow shirt that reads ‘Bun in the Oven’. When Gibbs drops a Jewish flag into his penholder, she’ll blink at it but not breathe a word. The team is ready to move on, she thinks, but they’re not ready to let go.

Tony tries to write, in the months following her resignation. Tries to carve out words that can somehow equate to the pain he’s feeling, to the loss he has no idea how to deal with.

_This is worse than when we lost Kate,_ he writes, but the words taste funny when he writes them, when he thinks them.

_I think you would have liked Ellie. I’m not sure if_ I _like Ellie_.

_Abby doesn’t even mention that you exist, but there’s a Star of David on her wrist that I’m sure wasn’t there before so maybe she’s coming around._

_The boss-man is as stoic as ever, nothing’s changed there. I think he’s rebuilding his boat – maybe it’s how he handles loss. Sure better than drinking away your sorrows._

_I think I’m losing my mind without you. It was eight years, all over and done in the space of a week. I think I’m losing my mind._

He stops writing after that one, doesn’t even try anymore.

Life moves on, as life does. There are more cases, more personal problems, more killers and cheats and frauds. There’s more death, and each body is just another statistic, another nock on somebody’s bedpost. 

When he was a kid, before he was sent off to boarding school and after his mother died, sometimes he’d creep into the kitchen late at night and see his dad, with a bottle in his hands and tears running down his cheeks. The sight had felt nothing short of forbidden, heartbreakingly sad. There was something wrong in seeing your father broken, and Tony hadn’t really understood it when he was younger. But as he got older, and as he lost people, he began to.

He named a goldfish after Kate, and she still swims around in her little tank, but Tony doesn’t think there’s anything that’s worth preserving the memory of Ziva. He could name an entire country after her, keep it in his back pocket, and it still wouldn’t be enough.

6 months post-Ziva – he wonders when life started being categorized by losing people – Tony visits the Boss. He’s in the basement, as always, building his boat and drinking liquor. Tony hesitates at the top of the stairs, watches as the closest thing he has to a father hunches over and sands and sands and sands until the piece of wood is smooth and untarnished.

“Are you gonna come in or just watch me from the door?” Gibbs finally asks, straightening to wipe sweat off his forehead. Tony kind of laughs and heads down the stairs, taking the tumbler of bourbon Boss extends.

Tony perches himself on the workbench and watches as Gibbs returns to sanding, his motions smooth and calm. “Have you heard from her?” He asks before he can stop himself. The question hangs in silence, the weight of something forbidden. It’s the first time, aside from in the bathroom, where Tony’s asked Gibbs about it. But from the way his boss slumps forward and sighs, a single sign of weakness, it’s not the first time that Gibbs has thought about it.

“No.” Gibbs answers, clipped and short. “I haven’t." 

Tony fills another tumbler of bourbon and downs the whole thing, the alcohol setting his whole body to blazing. “I guess I just keep expecting her to write, you know?” Gibbs doesn’t stop sanding, but he’s paying attention. Tony knows he is. “It was eight years of her life – _we_ were eight years of her life. She can’t have just forgotten us, could she? She couldn’t have just moved on and left the rest of us behind, not like this.”

Gibbs finishes off the piece of wood and turns to face his agent, a strange and melancholy look on his face. “Have you ever thought,” He says quietly. “That maybe she isn’t calling us because it hurts her just as much as it does us?”

“Well, yeah, but—“

Gibbs interjects, in that same quiet voice, “She needed time, Tony. Time to heal, time to move on. Give her that – let her live, let her _be_. She’ll call when she’s ready. Give her time to grow.”

Two weeks later, Dornie brings a package up from the mailroom with ‘Eleanor Bishop’ written on it in block letters and no return address. “Open it open it open it.” DiNozzo presses, bouncing on the balls of his feet like a six year old. He’d never admit it, but he’s grown quite fond of the little probie. The whole team has. 

“Jesus, you’re like a child.” She snaps, but it’s good-natured and Tony grins. She stabs at the box with a pair of scissors and drags it along the seam, ripping a clean cut through the tape. Very slowly, she peels back the flaps and stares at whatever’s laying on the bottom of the cardboard. Tony watches her face shift through different emotions, and then she reaches in with trembling hands and pulls out whatever she was given.

“Why would I want a cap with a hole in it?” She queries, holding it out to Tony. It’s a black NCIS baseball cap with a 9mm round in the visor. Tony stares at it in disbelief, and then snatches it from Ellie’s hands. “Tony!”

He waves her off, staring at the artifact in his hands. He turns it over, feeling the fabric and running a hand around the damaged bullet hole. “Ziva.” He breathes, his hands shaking so bad he almost drops the cap. And then he spins and lunges toward the box the hat came in, practically tearing it apart. “Note, note, she must have written a note, c’mon there’s gotta be _something_.” He mumbles to himself, one breath shy of deranged as he scrambles through the wrapping paper lining the box. There’s nothing, not a single sign of whom this is from. But Tony knows.

Ellie watches and then smiles when he looks to her, something broken and rejected in his gaze. She eases the baseball cap out of his hands and slowly, carefully, like she’s handling treasure, places it on her head. “Why on earth,” she begins, sticking her finger through the hole and wiggling it around. “Is there a 9mm round in this thing?”

There’s a long story to that, Tony almost answers. The people before you left quite their mark, left an imprint on NCIS. You’re wearing the hat of a dead woman, of a lost soul, of every person who’s ever sat at that desk before you. Instead, all he does is reach out and flick the visor, smile and say softly, “ventilation.”

After that, there’s nothing for almost two months. Ellie starts wearing the hat, and when McGee asks why she responds, “because this girl obviously sent it to me for a reason. I can’t dishonor that.”

Tony wants to know how Ziva knew who Ellie was, if she’s in contact with people inside NCIS, if she’s letting someone else be privy to her life while the people she knew for eight years wonder if she’s in Tel Aviv or Africa. 

And then, after two months of silence, another package arrives. Dorneget delivers it to Gibbs, who snatches it from the probie and then shoos him away. Tony and McGee practically leap to their feet as Gibbs peels back the tape and looks inside. For a moment, the bullpen is silent, and then the Boss laughs and holds up a pair of diamond earrings and a necklace.

“Those are from our first undercover case.” Tim says in disbelief, reaching out to grab one of the earrings. “I didn’t think she was allowed to keep these.”

Gibbs huffs out a laugh again and tosses the other earring to Tony, pocketing the necklace as he steps around his desk and heads to the elevator. “She wasn’t.” He tosses over his shoulder, still smiling. 

Tony stares at the earring, at the piece of Ziva he’s holding in his hands, and then he retreats back to his desk, sitting down and glancing up at Ellie. She’s staring at him curiously, but when she meets his gaze she looks back to her paperwork. Tony looks back to the earring, flashes a smile at the memory of Ziva propped in the chair Ellie now sits, or bent over Tony’s desk laughing, or leant up against the sink in the men’s room, the first time they had been alone since Saleem. The parts of her that Tony forgot – the parts of her that made her human, that made her _Ziva_.

With another small smile, he opens his desk drawer and drops the earring right next to the Star of David necklace. His own little shrine, his own dedication to the woman he loved and the woman he lost. 

Christmas almost sneaks up on them that year – one minute it’s June and Tony’s rallying for a Team Gibbs Island Getaway to the Bahamas, and then it’s the first snowfall of the year and Tim comes over to hang up Christmas lights around Tony’s apartment and put up a tree. He flinches at the photo of Ziva still on Tony’s mantle but says nothing as he hangs up ornaments. Abby bakes Christmas cookies and dresses up as Santa to deliver them and the entire team elects to ignore that Gibbs almost calls Ellie Ziva.

It’s been close to a year, but it’s harder than any of them expected.

Christmas Eve, at 6:30pm, they’re just tying up some loose ends on a case when McGee’s computer dings.

“Might be your dad.” Tony suggests as Ellie enters the bullpen carting four Styrofoam Starbucks cups. Tony almost salivates at the prospect of a hot drink.

“Yeah, right.” McGee scoffs, pushing himself from the floor of the bullpen where he’s sorting through old files. He cocks his head at his computer screen, and then his whole face changes. “Tony.” He says very quietly, glancing over at the senior agent. He clicks something on his computer, presses the remote and a video chat screen pops up on the TV. It’s grainy and jumpy as it connects to the crappy NCIS Wi-Fi, but then the screen fades from black to a pixelated picture. 

Tony leaps up and rams his chair into a wall, nearly knocking over his desk to get in front of the feed. “Holy shit.” He breathes, watching as the image clears up, as the woman in front of the camera leans in closer, a familiar grin on her face. She looks the same – same wild hair, same caramel eyes, same everything.

The old teammates just stare at each other. She might be waiting for a response, but Tony and McGee are still trying to believe this is real. Silence stretches on between them, and then Tony can’t help himself – slowly, he grins. 

“Merry Christmas.” He says.

She laughs and leans back, eyes soft and smile gentle and kind. It’s an entirely new look for her, this whole relaxed thing. She’s not made of hard edges anymore. “Merry Christmas, everybody.” Ziva David says. Tony almost sinks to his knees when he hears her voice.

They talk for two hours – Ellie introduces herself, someone calls Abby and Ducky and Palmer and Gibbs. Tony doesn’t dare look away from the screen or take his eyes off the woman in front of him. He’s scared that if he looks away, she’ll disappear.

That night, he thinks back to Paris almost six years ago, when there had only been one hotel room and one bed. Ziva dropped her bag and stared at the bed like it had done something wrong, an adorably pissed off furrow in her brow. Tony glanced to the tiny couch in the corner and had dreaded the crick in his neck he’d wake up with in the morning.

“I’ll take the couch.” He said anyway, as if there were really any other choice. Ziva looked at him curiously but said nothing as she kicked off her shoes and stripped her jacket. Tony nearly offered to go into the bathroom to give her privacy, but she looked at him in a way that said _shut your mouth_ so he did. They got changed in silence, but Tony couldn’t help himself – he glanced over quickly at her, when she had just taken off her shirt and her back was illuminated in the glow of the Eiffel Tower. For what it was worth, NCIS didn’t spare any expenses. He noticed, in the light, faint scars crisscrossing her back.

“They’re from Saleem.” She said very quietly, obviously sensing his gaze on her. “I’ve waited months, but I don’t really think they’re going to heal.”

“Maybe that’s for the best.” Tony said before he could stop himself, immediately regretting the words when Ziva spun to face him, her face a mix between surprise and almost agreement.

“Perhaps.” She agreed softly. Then she pulled back the covers of the very soft, very comfortable-looking bed, climbed in and said, “goodnight, Tony.”

Tony watched her curiously, and then got into his own makeshift bed. “Goodnight, Ziva.” The next hour, of course, was spent tossing and turning, trying to get comfortable in the close quarters. Every time he moved, Ziva would sigh like he was inconveniencing her, and finally when Tony nearly rolled off the couch, she sat up like a bullet and snapped, “Would you _please_ stop moving and go to sleep!”

He huffed through his nose at her. “It’s not exactly easy sleeping, Ziva.” He hissed back, flopping around like a fish out of water to try and find a good sleeping position. She was quiet for a moment, as if deciding something, and then she whispered, “there is more than enough room in this bed. Come on.”

He was about a breath away from declining when he suddenly wondered if it would be better proximity for her snoring. To wake her up. So, he picked up his pillow and padded over to the bed, dropping down beside her. She blinked at him in the dark, her caramel eyes glittering from the glow of the Eiffel Tower and Paris whirring underneath them. “Not gonna build a wall between us this time?” He teased, and Ziva smiled but didn’t laugh.

“Perhaps I do not want to.” She murmured, still smiling, and then she turned and fell asleep. Tony watched the curve of her, listened to her breathing and her soft whispers, and in time fell asleep too. When he woke up, she was curled against his chest; one leg was hooked over his and his arm was supporting her head as she slept against his shoulder. It was the most relaxed and at peace he had seen her since they returned from Africa. He hated himself for it, but he stayed like that until she let out a soft breath and blinked back to consciousness. 

He’s staring at the picture he took of her in Paris when Ellie leans over his desk and hits him on the forehead with a rolled up folder. “We got a case, idiot. Pay attention.” Tony sighs and stands, shutting his computer down.

Wasting precious company time thinking about Ziva will be heavily frowned upon.

Boss walks in right as Tony stands, and Tony grabs the clicker out of Ellie’s hands and points it at the monitor. “Audrey Lawrence went missing three days ago – husband filed a missing persons report last night and her car was found on the interstate this morning. Police said it had a fake bomb in it, and the decoy was covered in Audrey’s fingerprints. Coincidence? Me thinks not.” 

There are nights, now that they’ve spoken, where all Tony can think about is hearing Ziva’s voice. It wasn’t like this before, not to this extent, this missing her. But now that he’s talked to her and seen her and heard her voice, it’s become something so difficult to ignore, like a weight on his chest. She doesn’t call after Christmas Eve, but a letter arrives in Tony’s mailbox on a Sunday in March, his name and address scribbled across the envelope.

_Dear Tony,_

_Perhaps it was foolish of me, but I assume you have not moved since I left. I am currently residing in a small town outside of Tel Aviv – Mossad knows I am here, but I think they have decided to leave well alone. I did, after all, learn all their tricks when I was a child. And maybe I learned more while living in Washington. I know I should have called long before Christmas, and even now I think I should call, but I do not have the courage to face the team once more. Not yet._

_Eleanor Bishop seems wonderful, Tony. I’m so very glad that she was my replacement – she honestly seems to care for what she’s doing, and for whom she’s doing it with. When you left Tel Aviv, I had this strange idea that you wouldn’t find a replacement; that you’d wait for me to return. Perhaps you knew as I did, as I know now – that I was not going to return. I am so happy you all moved on as I have. It was for the best, me leaving. I know that now._

_The real reason I am writing to you, and only you, is because I think we need to have a discussion. I tried to call once, but I could not form the words on such short notice. So I figured the next best thing was writing, because at least here I have time to figure out what I want to say._

_My dearest, dearest Tony. My wonderful friend and teammate and all-around incredible person. I am writing to you, Anthony DiNozzo, to apologize.  
_

_I wish to apologize for any pain I put you through, any sleepless nights or wasted days at a bar. I was so focused on my own agony, on my own pain, that you were pushed to the backburner. So I am writing to tell you how truly and deeply sorry I am for hurting you, for causing you any grief in any way. But I am not sorry for leaving – I will not lie to you or make excuses for what I did and for the pain I caused the team, but I will not apologize for leaving._

_I hope that you understand that I had to leave – that I had no choice. This past year and a half has given me time to think and to grow in ways I never would have been able to do working at NCIS. For the first time in my life, I have nothing tying me to one place. I’ve been all over the world, Tony. I went to London, to Hawaii, to the Galapagos and to Russia and to Italy. I went back to Paris. I thought of you._

_You said in Tel Aviv that you would change for me; that you would change_ with _me. I did not believe you then, but now I think I do. I think I believe you now because I would have too – I would have changed with you. I still would. I would have captured the moon for you Tony. I would have held the world in the palm of my hands. But the thing is, I had to change for me before I could change for anyone else._

_And now, I think I may be ready._

_I know there is no place for me at NCIS anymore, but I have booked a seat on a plane leaving the first day of April. It’s direct to Washington, D.C., and I know it’s not much. A plane does not change the pain I’ve put you through. Trust me, I know. But it’s a step, and I hope it’s a step in the right direction._

_I hope to see you at the airport – if I do not, then I will take the hint and leave you be. But I’m praying, Tony, that I see you there. It would mean the world to me._

_Give my love to the team (Ellie included)._

_I miss you, Tony. I miss you so._

_Ziva_

He’s there when the plane arrives, when she steps out of the gate and back into his life, and as her eyes dart around the airport she looks almost terrified that he didn’t come. But then she meets his gaze and her whole body deflates in relief. He knows he should feel a little bit wounded that she didn’t think he would be there, but he’s so past the point of caring. The fact that she’s here, she’s alive, that she came back. It’s all that counts.

Tony takes her to NCIS, where Abby nearly faints from excitement and Gibbs holds Ziva so tight she looks like she’s about to break. Ziva’s gaze flickers briefly to her desk, and what Ellie Bishop has made it, and then she looks to Gibbs’ desk and sees the Jewish flag. And then she starts to notice parts of her around the bullpen – photographs on desks, the unstable part of Ellie’s rolling chair from when Tony and McGee disassembled it. There are pieces of her tucked into every corner.

“We were ready to move on,” Tony says over her shoulder as he watches her glance around and take it all in. “But I don’t think we were ready to let go.”

Ziva meets his eyes and smiles in a way he’s never seen before. And then she grabs his hand and says quietly, “Neither was I.”


End file.
